The Divide Between Being and Becoming
by Dertt
Summary: A post Third Impact story which is told from the point of view of various characters and offers in depth exploration of their thought processes. There's a bit of ShinjiAsuka in there, too, if anyone cares about that. Now with 50 percent more paragraphs!
1. A Whole New Breed of Entropy

It's my father's fault. He calls me to do things, but not because he needs me; he just needs someone. I've never gotten along with him. Well, how would I know if we get along? I've never really talked to him. Bastard. He doesn't care for me. Why should he? It's not like I've ever given anyone reason to. I only do what I'm told to do, even if I seem reluctant.  
My reluctance is a big part of the problem. My reluctance to pilot even though it could save lives. My reluctance to talk to my father. My reluctance to tell Asuka my feelings. I keep telling myself that I mustn't run away, but I don't run. People who run from their problems are people who were given that option, by authorities or circumstances, or whatever. I have no choice. I have to help people. How can I do that though? Everyone tells me the first person I should care about is myself, but then something happens that makes me do otherwise, but I can't care for others because they don't care for me, but they don't care for me because I don't care for myself, and I don't care for myself because... nobody cares about me. I'm supposed to help people when I can't help myself. I should try to stop thinking like this for a second.

Asuka hasn't talked in a while. She usually won't be quiet. I like her voice though. I wish I could hear it now. But she won't talk. She wouldn't talk to me if I was the last man on Earth, she said. Ironic that I now am the last man on Earth. Or is it ironic? She's doing what she said she would. Sitting in silence. Silence can't be placed anywhere. It can't be sorted. I hate ambiguity; I hate having to formulate multiple interpretations of something that should be so simple, but silence isn't even open to interpretation. It's just there. It is. And it hurts. Everything hurts. Did I honestly kill everyone? Are they gone? Will someone answer these questions? I'm so lost, but I'm staying in one place. I'm on this little island in the remnants of the world. There's nowhere to go except over to Asuka. She doesn't want to talk to me. She must be so confused. She must be crazily disenchanted. I should talk to her.

I tell myself I mustn't run away, but it's pointless just like everything else. I have nowhere to run to. Nowhere to go except over to Asuka.  
She probably hates me. Everyone's all pushed together. Everyone in the world has fused into a giant orange pool. Every person on Earth exists as one, except me and Asuka. Asuka. Strange. She's the one I would want to be one with, yet we're the only ones who exist separate from each other. Maybe I thought that would bring her to me, if I was literally the last man on Earth.   
Where we could be one out of choice and not circumstance. My entire life is circumstance, though. There are no choices. No options. I chose to stay this way though, didn't I? Am I an individual? I'm away from Asuka. I'm separate from her. Alone? Together? I wish she would talk to me, even just to insult me. I'm alone. We're more apart than ever, just a few feet away from each other. We are... apart? I am myself, and not her. I've been letting her control me, though. I let her live inside me. But... from the feelings inside me, everyone died. I miss them.

Where is my mother? Asuka must be wondering the same thing. My lips were so close to hers. I was going to do it. She couldn't protest. She was asleep? She was asleep. Was I taking advantage of her? She whispers something about her mother. I realize she's just as scared as I am. Scared. She's the same as me. Damn it, I can't decide. She's the same as me. She's different. We are separate. I should talk to her. I have to think of something to say, but what's the point. I'll look like an idiot anyway. I always do.  
Asuka I said please help me Asuka don't let me die don't let me fade away I throw over the table Pen Pen looks surprised and retreats from the room I'm yelling I'm crying out please Asuka help me help me don't kill me... don't... I... love you... love... No. Love is between two people. But we are they same.  
But I'm supposed to love myself help me Asuka help me decide I don't need you I don't need you I need you to help me decide I don't need this. Shinji she says pull yourself together we have an Angel to deal with. We have a situation. You're a man aren't you she says. Act like one. Sweep her off her feet. Maybe I should talk to her. What would I say? Why am I asking myself? Can she answer my questions? Are we... are we Adam and Eve? Is there deception involved? Is this supposed to be Eden? My Eden? Everyone else is gone. I have nowhere to go except over to Asuka.  
Oh mein Gott she says the entry plug Shinji. Shinji. Das nicht. Shinji, das nicht.

If she is Eve, will she damn everyone? She'll trick me into taking the fruit against my better judgment. But I have no judgment. I never have a choice. And she won't talk to me. Not if I was the last man on Earth. You are a man she yelled at me she yelled at me you are all you have left because you're scared and you won't let anyone help you but I need help I want to cry. She shouts and she pushes me she said you pushed away Rei and Misato and you're the only person you have left. And you don't even like yourself. What is she talking about?  
Asuka's so quiet. I wish she would talk to me. I'm a man but she is not. But we are the same and different. Alone, together. It's so self-contradictory. It's like me. Everything's like me. But I'm separate from it, because everything is liquid and I am here as an individual, with Asuka.  
My hands are around her neck. Her feet are inches off the ground. I raised her up. I strangled her. She's choking. She's choking. Oh God someone help her. Help me God I'm choking her. I'm killing Asuka! It's my fault. It's my fault!

'Where is my mother' Asuka probably is wondering but is she dead she's not, no one is and everyone is and I miss them. I miss her, she's not talking to me. I miss Misato and Rei. I wish they were here. Rei is here, I think.  
I think a lot. Rei?  
I miss Kaoru. He told me that I was worth something, but he had me kill him. I did it. I killed him. I didn't even save anyone. The Third Impact happened anyway, and now I have nowhere to go except to Asuka. But I've never had anywhere to. I've never had the option of leaving, so what's the difference?

I wish I could stop thinking and everything else would stop be careful what you wish for they say. Fuck them they don't know how it is. Asuka. I love her and she won't talk to me. But I don't need her. I chose to be apart from her, didn't I? I chose to be an individual. I'm giving myself a choice now. I can either stand here and look at the ruins of Earth or talk to her. I'm going to talk to her. I do need her? No. I want her. It's conscious. I have knowledge of it, I'm aware and I have choices. I'm going over to talk to her.  
"Asuka" I am saying. "What" she is short with me. It's to be expected. "I don't know" I said. "Fine."  
"Fine." Fine she says. She was cross with me, because this mess is my fault. But that means I'd do it on purpose? It was all on purpose. That'd be my only reason to feel guilty for it. To do something on purpose you have to choose to do it, right? Right? Help me. Help me I am myself.

"Asuka" I look at her. She's pretty. Her hair hangs in front of her face.   
"What now" abrupt again please Asuka please help me just once "I think we can go home." Go home. Home is nowhere. Is home here? Home is where there are people who love you. And she won't talk to me.  
I have my hand on hers. It surprises me. I'm not scared. She doesn't jerk her hand away. It surprises me. Am I doing this? I can see my reflection in the pool. We're both looking in. She is pretty. My hair is messy. My eyes are sunken. She looks like an angel. An angel? Angels tried to kill us. She wanted me to die. Angels are messengers of God. I am God. She is everything. We are together now, that's all that matters.

Close your eyes Shinji. She is not afraid do not be afraid don't run away, you have had the chance and you didn't do it are you a man? You're stronger than you give yourself credit for I say to myself. It surprises me.  
It shouldn't, I guess. Asuka told me that.  
It was... Close your eyes. I'm trying not to think. I think about not thinking. That's funny. No, that's stupid.  
If we are Adam and Eve like it is in the bible, then even if we are damned, we are the beginning of everyone? Lilith gave birth to people? Rei was Lilith. I can't decide which is the truth. Don't try to decide the truth that's how you get into this kind of shit. Genesis. Is this Genesis? I still have Asuka's hand.  
Our hands touched the LCL. It's strange, feeling this stuff again. It made me feel safe I say to myself but it smells a lot like blood it's like the mother's womb like a child tries to retreat back into the womb when it's born. Tragedy. It's tragedy.  
I hardly knew my mother. Did I? I knew her better than my father. My father was cold. He loved her, though. He could love. That's why there was Rei. I loved Rei. She was nice to me. I love Asuka. Asuka wouldn't talk to me she says if I was the last man on Earth but here we are now hand in hand.

My fingers are all the way in the LCL. She's smiling. She smiled at me. It's the weirdest thing I've seen here. And there's a giant head on the horizon. That's kind of funny. But it's sad as well. I can't be sad I have Asuka. I have choice, but not the choice to not be sad. That's where Asuka comes in I guess. To fight the sadness?  
We are together, apart, apart together.  
The lit match doesn't stop existing it just becomes part of a larger fire.  
My other hand touched her face. She did the same thing. It's like being electrocuted. I'm going to die but she's not going to kill me and I don't mind.  
We are alone, together.

"Shinji" she gasps. What's she so surprised about? There's nothing to see. "Shinji look up." I look up. A city is there. The head is gone, the ruins are falling in reverse. Falling back into buildings. Back into life. The orange liquid becomes red dots. I've seen this before. Have I?  
Oh my God Asuka help me I'm bleeding I'm being crucified here help me the nails Asuka life, Asuka, life. I hit the ground. My hands are bleeding from where I caught myself. It stings a little but the city is there. I'm not bleeding anywhere else. Asuka's arms are around me. She is crying.  
My hands hurt sort of. I'm crying too. We cry into each other's shoulders. "Why are you crying" she said.  
"I have no idea" I'm sobbing. She smiles. She's pretty. She talked to me. But I killed her. I killed everyone. She's there.  
I'm not sure of it, of what's real, but if it's a dream I sure as hell don't want to wake up.


	2. Concerning the Subject of Fish

Misato's place is like I remember it. It's messy. She never picks anything up. The first thing I see when I open the door of course has to be mountains of empty beer cans.  
Dead soldiers, she says.  
She won't just put the cans in the bins. It's not that hard. I should tell her off later, but what good would that do?  
Ikari really is just a kid Kensuke and Toji said he said she shows you a side of herself she doesn't want anyone else to see. She considers you like family they try to say.  
The cans are everywhere.

I'm surprised Asuka hasn't pulled her hand away yet. She would usually punch me even if I just accidentally brushed up against her. I guess she calmed down to me when I killed her. But I never killed her.  
Asuka is calm. She looks at me and her hand is not in mine anymore and the electricity is gone. My hand tingles.  
"Idiot. Nichts hat sich geändert." she is saying. Asuka I can't understand you. Speak Japanese. Speak Japanese, God damn you.  
"Did I say you could touch me?"  
She brushed me out of the way like I was dust. Everyone's dust. Dirt and sand and dead skin. Dust.

She's in a chair at the table. The table where she said Shinji do you want to kiss me she said.  
Why  
I have nothing else to do I'm bored are you afraid to kiss a girl she says she's taunting me always picking on me.  
Are you afraid to kiss a girl on the anniversary of your mommy's death Asuka said  
why did she bring my mother's death into this  
Asuka says is she watching you from up in heaven  
Well Asuka you're getting more than you bargained for I lean my head in and she wants me to stop breathing?  
I kiss her, sort of. She forces my lips onto hers and holds them there with my nose shut and I'm suffocating help me and she's washing her mouth now.  
She's brushing her teeth and using mouthwash how insulting how insulting  
Definitely not a good way to kill time she complains.

She was so upset when Misato came home. Misato doesn't seem to be home right now. When Misato came home that night when we kissed, Asuka tried to talk to Mr. Kaji. He's dead now. Like Asuka. Who is here and not dead reality is at the end of the dream I hear the voice say.  
Asuka was upset when she came from talking to Kaji. She told me she felt awful because she actually kissed me. Insulting how insulting but I'm not hurt. I'm hurt because I know it had to do with Kaji. I remember that night.  
I wanted to die.  
I've never really cared if I died or not, but I've never actually desired death.

Asuka's sitting at the table. Wonder what she's thinking. Pen Pen is out of the refrigerator. He's making penguin noises.  
Ms. Misato what's in the other refrigerator I ask  
Misato says he's probably still sleeping she said.  
He's making penguin noises. I'd rather try to figure out German than penguin noises. I think he's complaining about something. This is getting annoying. Where's the fish? That's probably the first thing I should try doing: giving him something to eat. Fish.  
Swimming in the ocean like fish.

I'm in one of Asuka's plug suits.  
We match oh haha Aida yes my figure is nice very funny Toji shut the hell up.  
She's making me ride in the plug with her in her Eva Asuka you can't go in the water we'll be finished.  
We're underwater. Swimming in the ocean like fish. All units fire at will. Angel destroyed.  
Fish.

The pack is open. Pen Pen has finally shut up now, but I still want Asuka to talk to me. What's so hard about talking to me I wonder?  
She's more insecure than I am. That's why she acts so self-righteous and superior and pompous all the time. But how the hell would I know?   
What's that noise? Oh, it's just the TV. I hate these religious programs.  
"The sun will turn to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the lord." an old man rants.  
That seems unsettling. I thought religion was supposed to bring you solace, not terror.  
Absolute Terror Field.

The Eva has penetrated the Angel's AT Field impossible they say how the hell severe cranial damage suffered unit has been rendered immobile how the hell?  
His sync ratio is escalating  
escalating I'm ascending heavenwards.


	3. Dysfunction Derived from Indignation

"You are a boy. Act like one." Misato reproaches me.  
"You're a man, right?" Asuka teases.  
"After all, combat is a man's job." I boast.   
"Is this really a girl's room?" Toji asks.  
Who decides what a man is supposed to do? What a girl is supposed to do? That's more ambiguous than what it means to be human: what it means to be a man; what it means to be a woman. It's not absolute. Humans made it like they made everything they know.  
Toji states "It's not a man's work." when I ask him to help me clean up. It's stupid to say you can't pick up because you're a man. It's just as stupid as saying you can't cry because you're a man. Or you can't fight because you're a girl.

Combat is a man's job I say when I've finally started to "assert myself" when I have a bit of an "attitude" and I fall in the Angel's shadow and meet myself. Myself as seen by someone else? It was made up. That's what I'm going to decide. Either the Angel was trying to screw with my head or I was hallucinating. I whimper it's cold I say I'm going to die in four hours Eva standby mode minimal life support life energy depleting.

This warmth is something I have never known before. Is this a part of being human? How would you define a human? Is there some sort of a list? If emotion and self-awareness are qualifiers... does that make an Eva human? Does that make me the machine? I've only ever felt the warmth that's supposed to be a part of being human when inside the Eva. I've been under its restraint, not the other way around. It was my mother that I felt. But my mother is something I have never felt.  
Rei draws the answers from me by repeating the same three words after every statement I make. I had to retract my statements, didn't I? She was pulling my purpose out from the depths of me? She was putting it in front of me and I chose to hide it again.  
At least I chose.

Shinji what happens from this point on is your own decision only you can decide Misato says  
The Eva is refusing to accept our commands it's choosing not to listen  
Shinji you have to choose Shinji come out bring him back damn it.

I see Rei. What's Unit 00 holding? A mine? Rei what the hell did you do. You blew it up are you crazy. The Angel's not even phased and more people could die and Asuka's Eva's head was thrown right in front of me and it's bleeding bleeding make the stupid thing stop, father. More people could die because of this thing but I can't fight it because I'm not even sure what makes it our enemy. It's killing so many humans but do we have the right to decide that the lives of humans are worth more than an Angels? Who made us God? Did God? God made man, man made God, man made Evas but angels made Evas but God made angels and man made God who made man make it stop father make this goddamn thing stop I can't kill another human please don't let it crush the plug there's another kid my own age in there!  
There's probably people who care about them but not me no one cares about me and you're just demonstrating that right now by not letting me control the Eva and not even letting me do the only thing that would give me the chance of being cared about and I hate you please love me.

"There is a renowned post-modernist opening today juxtaposing artistic images with image portraying or suggesting the creation of art, creating what has been called a suspension of art and reality." The television has been changed to the news. Asuka has gone to her room. She hasn't been out in a while. Should I go check on her? No, she'll yell at me. What's worse, she'll probably yell at me in German and leave me to figure out what she was saying which is worse than knowing torture torture Stupid Shinji I hear her voice echoing in my head.  
Asuka has retreated to her room and has been there for a while. Thanks Asuka. That means no awkward situations occur while soap operas play in the background of our affairs. Affairs.  
NERV internal affairs intelligence. The TV has changed to the news and they are discussing art mimicking reality? I thought reality was art, and the other way around. It's like a dream that you have of dreaming about watching a movie about what's about to happen to you in your life. It's like being on a hamster's exercise wheel and running and trying to run faster than the wheel, isn't it?

People have a tendency to feel trapped by freedom. I've heard people talk about how I need to come out of my shell. I hide in a shell because of why? I have to restrict myself?  
I envy the blind because they cannot see the absence of grace said my father my father who abandoned me but I try to exclude him because he excluded me to make way for Rei if it's a girl I'll name the baby Rei he said please accept me father.   
Somebody please like me.

I knock on Asuka's door. She says "Yes?" very slowly. She's annoyed. But I wouldn't know, would I? People are who they are but there's no point to that because everyone spends all their life just trying to describe themselves and their own inner monologues and their motivations Kaji said when he spent the night with us. Asuka wasn't happy then. I don't know what I did I know I did something. I wanted to say sorry for apologizing to her all the time I don't want her to be mad at me. Asuka, hear me out for a minute. I'm sorry that I'm the way I am. I'm sorry for always having to say sorry. Why am I thinking of telling her this now?  
"Is everything honestly back to normal?" I instead ask. How the hell should she know? She doesn't. She shrugs. I mean, is NERV still existent? Is this how we would want the world or is this the world as it actually was? As it was when we were fighting the Angels? Are the Eva Units here? All of them?

Haven't you heard Kensuke says Unit 04 exploded or something why didn't Misato tell me this?  
I can't fight another Eva. I can't kill another person there's a kid in there just who is the Fourth was I supposed to know? Why was I left out did they think it would be too hard on me it's like they were expecting something like this to happen and they knew I would be the one to break down and cry when faced with it.  
NERV were all bastards.  
Unit 02's arms, where are they? I have to help them Rei what are you doing.  
You remind me of a mother Rei I bet you would make a great mother.  
She's blushing?  
This smells like Ayanami I can breathe it in this is a smell I know my mother the plug smells like Ayanami I say.  
Smells like what Asuka says I suppose he's been smelling her a lot is he a pervert.   
Rei I can see you now.

Rei what's my father like?  
I do not know she says.

"You came into my room just to ask that ridiculous question?" Asuka snaps.  
I can't say sorry; then I feel like I'll have to apologize. Yeah, sorry I like you, Asuka. You pilot an Eva for praise and attention but when someone likes you, you brush them aside like dust. I close the door without saying anything. Slam the door, actually. Nice going, Shinji. She's a bitch, so you have to be an asshole.  
I wasn't paying attention. I was in a memory. A lot of memories.  
You can't keep replaying those same few moments and expect them to become a shelter for you regurgitating and re-digesting the same events from the past repeatedly until the present is hollow.


	4. What is What Hurts?

Commander Ikari... Commander Ikari, forgive me.  
I have failed you.

Commander Ikari, I will not allow myself to become a facet of you.  
I refuse to become one with you because I wish to remain myself.  
I am I.  
I am not a doll, and I am not you.

_who are you?  
_I am Rei Ayanami.  
_who are you?_  
I am the First Child.  
_who are you?_  
I am the designated pilot of Evangelion Unit-00.  
_who are you?_  
I am one who bears a shape which is not my own, but nevertheless, I am my own.  
_who are you?_  
A conscious, self-aware entity existing for the purpose of finding who I am.  
_who are you?_  
Something that exists on a level deeper than the question of "who are you?"  
Who am I? I am unsure if I am ready to tell you.

You see me and you say that the image you alone have of me if the true Rei Ayanami, even if it is similar to me only in name. A name does not contain the qualities of the object it labels.  
Rei Ayanami is Rei Ayanami. That which is I, and I am not you and will not allow myself to exist within you.  
I am...

Your perceptions of me... the perceptions of others... how am I to know that they are not also that which is I? There is no method to determine whose perception is more trustworthy than another's.  
Red. The color of blood. It may seem blue to another. If I was to see a color and label it as red, but another was to label it as blue, how would a third party determine who was correct? In order to see the answer, would we not have to live in a world where color does not exist at all?

I am Rei Ayanami. I have realized within myself the concept of myself. I have existed as only myself and with only myself and I have consequentially experienced what is known as loneliness. Loneliness is something I must live with if I wish to remain self-sufficient.  
Unless...  
Unless the bond it symbiotic and not parasitic. The alleviation of loneliness does not require subordination.  
Individuality is not to be sacrificed for acceptance and unity, is it?  
Divide and conquer. Turn the insides against themselves and divided we fall.  
There must be harmony and the must be unity to survive, and yet there must also be a isolation in order to create the individual being that struggles to survive.

Yes sir, Commander Ikari.  
I can not leave the Eva; the AT Field will disappear.  
I will not allow myself to become something that I am not.

If I become something different from what I currently am, however, would that make it so that I was not myself? I am always myself, in spite of whatever actions I may be taking. I lack the words to express what I am trying to express. Words cannot adequately express though processes. Word are structures which have no place in abstractions and thoughts are abstractions which have no place in structures.

Words are not absolute and they are useless in expressing an absolute.   
An absolute which thought is not

All anyone can do is ask questions that there are no answers to and then question whether or not there are any answers and they cannot simply accept that everything is nothing and nothing is something so everything is something and it fits together like pieces of a puzzle.   
It's as if humans were created solely to destroy themselves.   
We ask questions that there are no answers to.   
All anyone can do is guess.

You must ask the question   
"If all this exists in my head, how does my head exist?"   
You're seeing things with your mind and not your eyes, for your mind perceive your eyes to be there, making you unsure of their existence, but without eyes your mind would never see.  
One can never see their mind, for the mind creates the brain through perception and exists within the brain.   
It's paradoxical.  
_  
"Although life yields, I am not without a sudden change of heart." _

Nonsensical.   
And irrelevant.   
Do you know what this is?

_this? _

Everything.

_it is resistance _

Though it can't be the answer.   
We invented these emotions, these words with emotional connotations; the mind created the mind.

_fight for what you want and do not question it _

What I want is to know what I want.   
Therefore I **must** question.

_you have created a paradox _

You cannot contribute anything...   
I **am** paradox.

_you are enigma _

The world is paradox and the world is enigma.   
But have I created the world?

Perhaps the only way to answer this is to become God. The way to become god is through divine knowledge unbeknownst which cannot be known except to a God.  
But these questions only exist in my head?   
Should I not comprehend them?

When we finally come to the answer, we find that the ultimate answer is that there _is_ no such thing as an answer.   
That is what hurts.

The purpose of life is to search for the meaning of life.  
That is what causes pain...  
but that which causes pain is also loneliness.

I exist in a multitude of ways simultaneously, and yet none of these forms help to reassure me that I am not the only one like me.  
The Fifth Child once said we were alike. Were we? In what way?

There are many of us and yet I am alone. There are many of me and I cry because I am alone.

I am Rei Ayanami.   
I am the pilot of Eva-00.  
I am lonely.  
I am crying.

What are tears meant to signify?  
Sadness?  
Is sadness not something that I alone can know, if I am the one whose head the world exists within?  
If all others are only I, and experience themselves subjectively, this allows there to be only one who exists.  
I am the only one to exist, then?  
Is this why I must be alone?

My apartment is empty. It is barren and I find this appropriate, because it reflects me at the moment, and I...  
I am all I have.  
But who am I?  
I am lonely.

My apartment is full of bandages and pain relievers and I am the only one here.   
I am the only one I have.  
Who am I?  
I am lonely.


	5. Soul Doll

A legless, soulless doll  
lies at the end of the tunnel.  
This is not the light you expected.  
A doll which made mankind  
and which mankind uses  
to make dolls of their own.  
I find myself as I dig through  
the walls at the end of the tunnel.  
I am not the light I expected.  
A faceless black form mimics my own.  
Shadows fall; that is to be expected.  
A sky of red seen by eyes of red.  
That is not the answer I am seeking.  
Eyes of red hidden behind glass of red.   
Could this be the piece I am missing?  
Time stands still on a plot of land  
with no intended purpose.  
None of this was what we expected.  
Water the land.  
Rushing water and air.  
The color blue reflected in glass of red.  
It cannot be seen.  
It cannot be seen.  
Who are you?  
A question you cannot answer, for  
it cannot be seen.  
Glass: created from fire.  
Fire: devourer of life.  
Life singed by the flames.  
Blood: the sustenance of a life.  
Nothing is rising from his feet of clay except  
all of his dreams and all of the  
ideals of man.  
The Son of Man, the Daughter of Lilith.  
Lilith: not to be regarded as one of mankind.  
Angels: Inhuman.  
Justification for their destruction?  
Red glass reflects blood.  
The reflection...  
it cannot be seen.  
From this angle...  
From any angle...  
The definition of "why" is a question of its own.  
"Is" is a word which defines all there is to be.  
"Be" is what is done by all that is.  
The orchid.  
The rose.  
A field of flowers...  
A plain of grass...  
The blades are all identical,  
and the blades are numerous,  
but to remove one would be to change the whole.  
Echoes live on inside the doll.  
Soul doll.  
Sew up the soul doll.


End file.
